GAU Holds The Press Conference Of “Day Fof Justice” In Nicosia

AKPINAR: “WE DO NOT WANT TO BELIEVE THERE IS A POWER ABOVE OUR GOVERNMENT”

Girne American Univeristy (GAU) held a press conference in Nicosia Merit Hotel under the title of “Day for Justice”.

GAU Rector Prof. Dr. Kutsal Öztürk who performed the first speech of the conference stated that they have faced with an injustice while strongly believing in rights and law and they always share the truths with the legal documents. Ozturk underlined that they have great respect to the ruling and the decision of Supreme Administrative Court and they continue their works to show this “injustice” situation to the public.

Öztürk continued as follows:

“With the students from Turkey and other parts of the world, GAU has a great exhange of culture. Our university is a university which is calm, eventless, rightful, and fair and we aim to be in peace in every aspect. We have rights and in case of the violation of these rights, the authorities are the Supreme Administrative Court and the law.

We always support the universities which provide lawful education with their strong staff in TRNC. We act jointly with all universities, except one. We call our island as a “university island” and make an effort for it. We are a world university with our 6 campuses in 3 continents. Each support has a great importance for the existence of this island of education.”

ÇINAR: “WE HAD THE COURT DECISION”

In the speech of Oktay Çınar who was one of the lawyers of GAU, it was referred that their aim is to share the process of the fight which was started in 2013 against the injustice situation GAU experienced and they went to the Supreme Administrative Court with the claims that registration name of the so-called university is not proper and would cause confusion. Çınar emphasized that the court considered their lawsuit application and decided in favor of GAU.

Çınar: “The governance and the related university paid no attention to the decision of the court. Justice is not just about the ruling; government needs to implement the decision. In response, we had to open another lawsuit for the implementation of the court’s decision. In our opinion, Supreme Administrative Court gave the right decision. We interfiled the interlocutory order under the current lawsuit. Respective case 144/2015 was filed in the court. It is not right to discuss the counterclaims as the lawsuit process is still continuing. However, we had to take bigger actions as the decision had not been followed yet. Instead of the name which was cancelled under our 82/2013 numbered lawsuit, they have registered a new name which is Cyprus Kyrenia University Ltd. This decision was contrary to the core principal. We could not stay silent against the averting of the court’s decision. By filing 176/2015 numbered another case, we have opened a new lawsuit in which we claimed that the new name was contrary to the 82/2013 numbered decision and the governance which allowed this was wrong”

ASENA: “THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO TAKE ACTION”

Mustafa Asena who is another lawyer of GAU stated that the police, office of the chief prosecutor, governance and the government are the ones who need to take action within the process of the ruling. Asena referred that only 3 of the judges rule administrative suits by underlining that there is only 3 judge who can solve their problems and the total number of the judge is 8.

Asena continued; “You decide how this is possible. If an issue does not go to the judge, the judge cannot do anything. Today, we are here for justice, for an administrative justice. In this phase, the governance followed all decisions of the court, the ones who do not is the administrators of the so-called university. The problem is in the executive. If there is a law, it needs to be fair. A politician must be fair while taking any actions. If these are not the case, you cannot consider any democracy in that country. In my opinion, judgment is the only thing in our country that we can trust.”

AKPINAR: “GOVERNANCE HAS HESITATION IN IMPLEMENTING THE DECISION”

GAU Founding Rector and Chancellor of Board of Administrators Serhat Akpınar specified that the governance has hesitation in implementing the decision and their current position is about not practicing a decision which was given by the court. Akpınar recorded that in case the decision is not implemented, whether it’s the authorities of the university or politicians, they will face with imprisonment sentences, in this sense, the governance will urgently have to practice the decision.

Akpınar continued; “They hanged out direction signs of a university which name is not legalized. Office of the Chief Prosecutor stated that the issue needs to be approached by the Ministry of Transportation. The ministry received the opinion of the Office of the Chief Prosecutor and gave advice for not hanging out the signs with this name. However, our Minister decided to prevent hanging out new signs rather than removing the other signs which was hanged out among Kyrenia.

AKPINAR: “THIS PROCESS SHOULD NOT CONTINUE IN THIS WAY”

“TRNC has experienced such a case for the first time. The governance refuses to follow the decision because this is the first time they are face with such a case. Who has the power to stop the implementation of the decisions, judge and justice? My only wish is to end this funny game as soon as possible. It’s not long now before our Minister of Education gave permission of a medical faculty to a university which name is still matter of discuss! This university tries to take steps forward by taking necessary permissions.”

AKPINAR: “THIS IS CLEARLY A ROBBERY”

Akpınar: “The so-called university takes advantage of our name and tries to take our place with our whole history and future by using the visuals and publicity images of GAU in its official website and presentation materials. This is clearly a robbery.”

Akpınar stated that since the interlocutory orders are not practiced, there is intentional nonobservance to the order of the court by the authorities of the university and referred that “although their name is not legalized, they try to demoralize the members of YODAK with actions for damage.”

“For our equality, rights and injustices we experience, we, the people of this beautiful island, have been claiming rights, law and justice in the international platforms as the state of TRNC for 40 years. We did not give up our fight and never will. We wonder how we will see better days under these circumstances, without providing the supremacy of law in the presence of the government, executives and those concerned”

At the end of his speech Akpınar emphasized that;

If TRNC is a constitutional state; If all community of TRNC Universities is not wanted to sustain a loss; If any institution, group or individual is not considered as more superior than the Supreme Court; If TRNC’s image of ‘university island’ in Turkey and world public opinion is not wanted to be tarnished; For not bringing a disorder among the public; In order to not setting a bad example for private and government agencies and officials of TRNC; the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court must be implemented and as GAU, they promise for bringing Justice for GAU and the people of TRNC.